Observational studyJournal of general internal medicine2023
Access to Medications for Opioid Use Disorder in Rural Versus Urban Veterans Health Administration Facilities.
Observational study in Journal of general internal medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Geographic differences in buprenorphine and methadone prescribing for surgical patients with opioid use disorder.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2026Article
- Mental Health Prescribers' Perceptions of Patients With Substance Use Disorders and Harm Reduction Services.Federal practitioner : for the health care professionals of the VA, DoD, and PHS · 2026Article
- Veterans Health System Leader and Clinician Perspectives on Expanding Access to Methadone Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder.Journal of addiction medicine · 2025Article
- Receipt of medications for opioid use disorder among rural and urban veterans health administration patients.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2025Article
- Improving access to buprenorphine for rural veterans in a learning health care system.Health services research · 2024Article
- Assessment of harm reduction receipt and infectious diseases outcomes in United States Veterans with opioid use disorder and history of injection drug use.Harm reduction journal · 2024Article
- Are gaps in rates of retention on buprenorphine for treatment of opioid use disorder closing among veterans across different races and ethnicities? A retrospective cohort study.Journal of substance use and addiction treatment · 2024Article
- Integrating Buprenorphine for Opioid Use Disorder into Rural, Primary Care Settings.Journal of general internal medicine · 2024Article
- Development and validation of machine-learning algorithms predicting retention, overdoses, and all-cause mortality among US military veterans treated with buprenorphine for opioid use disorder.Journal of addictive diseasesArticle
- Patients' Perspectives on Discontinuing Buprenorphine for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder.Journal of addiction medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFor patients with opioid use disorder (OUD), medications for OUD (MOUD) reduce morbidity, mortality, and return to use. Nevertheless, a minority of patients receive MOUD, and underutilization is pronounced among rural patients.
objectiveWhile Veterans Health Administration (VHA) initiatives have improved MOUD access overall, it is unknown whether access has improved in rural VA health systems specifically. How "Community Care," healthcare paid for by VHA but received from non-VA providers, has affected rural access is also unknown.
designData for this observational study were drawn from the VHA Corporate Data Warehouse. Facility rurality was defined by rural-urban commuting area code of the primary medical center. International Classification of Diseases codes identified patients with OUD within each year, 2015-2020. We included MOUD (buprenorphine, methadone, extended-release naltrexone) received from VHA or paid for by VHA but received at non-VA facilities through Community Care. We calculated average yearly MOUD receipt; linear regression of outcomes on study years identified trends; an interaction between year and rural status evaluated trend differences over time.
participantsAll 129 VHA Health Systems, a designation that encompasses one or more medical centers and their affiliated community-based outpatient clinics MAIN MEASURES: The average proportion of patients diagnosed with OUD that receive MOUD within rural versus urban VHA health care systems. KEY
resultsFrom 2015 to 2020, MOUD access increased substantially: the average proportion of patients receiving MOUD increased from 34.6 to 48.9%, with a similar proportion of patients treated with MOUD in rural and urban systems in all years. Overall, a small proportion (1.8%) of MOUD was provided via Community Care, and Community Care did not disproportionately benefit rural health systems.
conclusionsStrategies utilized by VHA could inform other health care systems seeking to ensure that, regardless of geographic location, all patients are able to access MOUD.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.